The Greatest British Sportspeople 20-11
Top 20 now - hurrah! I'll do this ten, then talk a little about people who haven't made the list, then on to the Top 10. Here goes ...
20. CB Fry (Multiple Sports, 1890s-1920s)
A ridiculous legend of a man ... could jump backwards onto a mantelpiece ... offered the throne of Albania ... wrestled with sharks ... made the last bit up.
Fry's sporting achievements are real enough. He equalled the world long jump record. He played for England at football (once) and Southampton in the FA Cup final. Played for the Barbarians at rugby.
Primarily a cricketer, he captained England and scored almost 100 first class centuries.
Tried three times to be elected as a Liberal MP but without success. Was a great Classicist.
So, we have a combination of Greg Rutherford, Michael Vaughan, Albert Einstein, Mary Beard, Victor Ubogu, Dave Rowntree and Francis Jeffers. Magic.
19. Linford Christie (Athletics, 1980s-1990s)
Hmm, I trouble myself with this one. I went with my heart on it. I loved Linford Christie. Loved him. And still do. Loved his manner, his defiance, his look, his running style, loved the fact that when I ran at little prep school running competitions in West London, it was at the recently named Linford Christie stadium, and we even saw him doing his training there one time. And his middle name is Cicero. And he was a grandfather by the time he defended his Olympic title in 1996. What's not to love?
Well, he has a pretty severe black mark against his name if we're talking sporting greatness. No one else on this list ever failed a doping test (though I suppose a couple did skip them). And he failed twice.
First of all, the one that stuck, it should be noted, was amidst a glut of very dodgy readings for nandrolone when they were not understanding the extent nandrolone readings could fluctuate for different people. And it was odd, because it was during a brief, pretty non-competitive comeback when he was 39.
But what of 1988, when he was very very lucky to escape sanction after failing a test at the 1988 Olympics. Can we forgive him? Can we believe him, like the man he coached, Darren Campbell, the cleanest man in athletics, believed in him.
The issue of doping in the sprints is right at the forefront this month, and very interesting things are being said amid the outrage. We may not like it, but there's doping, and then there's doping. There's steroids and blood doping, blatant, straightforward cheating, and then there's degrees and amounts of supplements, pushing the boundaries to get whatever advantage they can.
Goodness knows about Linford Christie. Nearly all the top sprinters of his era have been linked to doping in some way or another. How did he beat them if he didn't join them, one wonders?
He did beat them. He was clearly and definitively the fastest man in the world in 1992 and 1993, and being the fastest man in the world in the early 90s is worth to me a lot more than almost anything else in sport. So there we go. I'm sorry about this, but I think Linford Christie was a great, great sportsman, and I'm prepared to think the best of him.
18. Stephen Hendry (Snooker, 1980s-2000s)
The anti-Linford, and someone I disliked in equal measure to my adoration of Christie. Never really warmed to him, as many didn't, but he was the greatest snooker player (repeatedly crushing dreams of that lovely Jimmy White). Seven times world champion and break builder supreme, he is so high on the list on the back of pure sporting excellence and utter ruthlessness.
17. Jonathan Edwards (Athletics, 1980s-2000s)
It's quite hard to fathom Jonathan Edwards. There he is, these says, presenting the athletics with his strapping athlete chums, and he looks like he's the straight man, the broadcasting pro, the ex-Blue Peter presenter brought in to keep a tight ship. Today, he was presenting the triple jump at the IPC World Championships and he actually said "for our younger viewers, I used to do that". The smugness. "Yes, I'm a grey smiley Geography teacher, but actually I'm better than all of these, Colin Jackson, Denise Lewis, even Michael Johnson in a way, because I'm still the best ever, by miles, in my event. Didn't expect that, did you?"
He was a skinny grey man even when he did it, even as he hopped, skipped and jumped way further than anyone else, ever. He somehow didn't win the Olympics in 1996, because an American Kenny Harrison did the jump of his life, but got what he deserved in 2000 in Sydney.
It was at the 1995 World Championships, though, that, that he had his finest hour, a triple jump record of 18.29m, which is so much further than what most of them do, it's really Beamonesque. It's stood for 18 years, and should continue to stand, (although there is some inconsistent young talent out there).
The triple jump is such a great event too, so thrilling to watch, so athletic, yet also so technical. Edwards was a physicist, which figures. He was also, of course, a Christian. Until 2007, when, rather splendidly, he stopped presenting Songs of Praise and happily announced he didn't believe in God any more. Genius.
16. Phil Taylor (Darts, 1980s-2010s)
Well, i've kept to my promise that he wouldn't be Number 1, but I couldn't stop giving this cheery fellow an alarmingly high position. He may not be a great athlete, and Darts may not be a-great-sport, but it is great sport, and it does require practice and nerve and he has been World Champion 16 times. 16. And he has done that by continuing to improve as everyone else improved. He does have the hallmarks of a great sportsman, he always gets it done when his opponent raises his game. Strange one, really, after all that, to have a dartist in the Top 20.
15. Max Woosnam (Multiple Sports, 1910s-1920s)
When I say multiple sports, I really mean it. This is a tale of derring-do too fantastic to resist. Played for Man City, for England, made a 147 break, a century at Lords, and, oh yes, captained the Davis Cup team and won Olympic gold and Wimbledon in doubles tennis.
As I said with CB Fry, who knows, there may be folk capable of such outrageous variety these days who are simply not given the opportunity, so focused must professionalism be. Dammit, I wish there was still 'Superstars' so we could really find out ...
14. Steve Redgrave (Rowing, 1980s-2000s)
This is when it gets serious. This list probably started from a determination that Steve Redgrave was not, in any way, Britain's greatest ever sportsperson, despite what everyone else said.
Still, when it all worked out it would be churlish to have him lower than 14, such a tremendously dedicated athlete over 20 years, a smart, amazingly fit and strong man. 5 Olympic golds in consecutive Games is amazing. I like Redgrave.
But, you know, it's rowing. I went to a school where there was rowing. It's a sport for non-sportspeople. The ones who have realised they are no good at anything involving dexterity and skill but want to get fit. And, boy does it get you fit. And there must be something terribly addictive about it, because they were up every morning, rowing on the Thames. Big lungs, no doubt.
And they all do the same thing. There may be pairs, coxed pairs, fours, coxless fours, eights, but they all carry out the same action over the same distance of 2000m in a straight line. [Apart from scullers, of course, a slightly different action]. If Olympic rowing was a bit more like the University boat race, with currents and angles and considerable distance, it would be slightly different, but only slightly.
Rowing is just training and executing. Improvisation? Flair? Grace? Eyeball to eyeball? Dexterity? Virtuosity? Versatility?
I'm picking on rowing, of course. There are many sports with similar limitations. Some might point to athletics. But running is a primal thing, which every single thing in the world does. And they are on their own. And, apart from 100m, they are not running in a straight line, and there are all kinds of tactics. I could go on.
Redgrave was a great athlete, a great sportsman, but I need a little more.
13. Joe Calzaghe (Boxing, 1990s-2000s)
So, I have Joe Calzaghe as Britain's greatest boxer. To me it's self-evident. Throughout his career and afterwards, people doubted his credentials, said he was a stay-at-home, said he had no power, said he couldn't beat the top Americans, didn't fight the best opposition. But by the end, he'd fought and beaten all the best opposition, gone to America, beaten two living legends of boxing and just - never - lost.
The fact he never lost is somehow held against him too bizarrely. Because a big thing in boxing is coming back from defeats. But Calzaghe simply never got beaten, not since a teenage amateur fight in 1991. He was never really close to losing. He won a split decision against Bernard Hopkins (probably the greatest boxer of modern times, by the way) but I don't think the fight was that close, and also a split decision against fellow Brit Robin Reid, but most agreed with the decision going to Calzaghe [brief intermission - Reid is just about the unluckiest boxer of modern times - he got that close to Calzaghe and lost an outrageous decision on Germany to another "undefeated" "champion" Sven Ottke, who got more fixed wins than you can believe, and the Reid one was the most egregious. Reid also is the only man, Carl Froch says, who ever hurt him in a fight, made him see stars. That close to three massive career-defining wins, but now rather a forgotten man].
Calzaghe fought 46 times as a pro and sure there were a few easy fights in there, but there was Eubank, Reid, Richie Woodhall, Charles Brewer, Byron Mitchell, Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika, Mikkel Kessler, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr, all world champions at one point or another.
Calzaghe was a magnificently skilful, fast, clever boxer, he had a great chin and was never really hurt. His reputation suffers only because he was too good for his own good.
12. Ryan Giggs (Football, 1990s-2010s)
OK, here I go. Justify this. So I will. I'll need you to go with a few basic premises though. Do you agree that football is the biggest sport in the world, with the widest global reach, with the largest number of people aspiring to success in it? Do you agree that the standard of football, in terms of fitness, professionalism, worldwide strength in depth, has increased enormously in the last 25 years? Do you agree that club football has overtaken international football has the highest form of the game? And do you agree that over the last 20 years the Premier League has been one of the best three leagues in the world, attracting some of the best players, looked up to throughout the world? And that the Champions League is the pre-eminent football competition, where the best players from around the world compete to be crowned, essentially, the best team in the world? So, you agree that the yearly Premier League and Champions League are basically the highest quality sporting competitions in the world? I'm not saying the most fun, the most enjoyable, i'm not saying I don't get weary of the whole circus, and year on year, it doesn't take me deeper and deeper into the Autumn before I engage with the football season.
But think of it this way, ok? In establishing the basic and fundamental premise of this blog, that Ryan Giggs is a greater sportsman than Steve Redgrave, I ask how many kids around the world have, over the last 25 years, given everything they've got throughout their childhood to have the opportunity to replace Steve Redgrave, to fill his position? A few thousand lanky posh kids, perhaps, around the world? And Ryan Giggs? How many millions of children throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, South America has he had to stay at the top of his game for 22 years to keep from usurping him?
He plays for Manchester United, one of the three biggest sports clubs in the world. He's played for them for 22 years. He is, did you know, the most decorated club footballer in the world of all time, in terms of number of top competitions won. In the 23 years before he played for Manchester United, they'd won the league title 0 times. In the 23 years he has played for them, they've won it 12 times, and never been outside the Top 3. Alex Ferguson had already been manager for 5 years, so what made the difference? Scholes, Beckham, the Nevilles etc came into a winning team, a champion team, unlike Giggs. Keane? They won the league the year before he joined and the three years after he left. What influence? Cantona? Definitely, but, to be fair, they didn't win the Champions League til shortly after he left.
So, Giggs. You probably know he's my favourite player. But it's not like he's my cousin or something. Or that I support Man Utd, or have a soft spot for his style and manner. He's my favourite player, because I worked out pretty early on that he was the most important player, that he was the key to British football, and, of course, because when he was young he was utterly brilliant.
Sometimes football people say that a truly great footballer has to be able to grab a game by the scruff of the neck, do everything themselves, dominate the game, have every skill in the book. I say nonsense. Football is about excellence and results in a team context. A great footballer, has the most positive possible effect on the results of his team over the longest possible period of time. Greatness in football is just as much about an absence of negatives as much as positives. How many times have you seen a team mate shouting at Giggs, or has he been sent off, or really just fucked things up for his team?
And, like I said, lest we forget, he was also brilliant. A Giggs highlight reel on youtube is as good as anything you'll ever see. He scored plenty of goals, great goals, and more than that, he set up goals, probably set up more goals than any other player has ever set up. Even if he wasn't dominating a game or even playing well, at the right time he'd deliver the right cross to make a 1-1 a 2-1 and get the points that added up to the title at the end of the season.
So, there we go, Number 12. I'm not sure it's even high enough. Giggs is, by far, the main player of the Premier League age, and the Premier League is the most highly developed level ever reached in British sport, for all its flaws. 11 would have made more sense, of course. Oh well.
11. Ian Botham (Cricket, 1970s-1990s)
From my favourite sportsman to one of my very least favourite, I have at least done Botham the service of providing a photo of him his magnificent early 80s prime, rather than his mid/late 80s period as simply the worst looking person in the world. Which coincided with him also not being that good at cricket any more.
So, someone my age might fall into the trap of thinking that, on a global scale, Botham was good but not great. But I'd be wrong. The last 6 years of his test career should be forgotten about. He only took 28 wickets in the last 6/7 years of his test career, having taken about 350 in in the first 7/8.
Great Botham was great. Properly quick, a natural wicket taker, a fine fine batsman with 13 test centuries, he lives up to the legend. If he played now, goodness, he'd be a billionaire.
I could go on now about what a chump he is, but I won't. I save that for facebook. He was England's best all round cricketer, and though he did tail off, he didn't spectacularly blow it or fail to live up to his talent, he just got a bit worse as he got fatter and more injury-prone, like most of us do.
Also played league football and has walked a long way, apparently.
20. CB Fry (Multiple Sports, 1890s-1920s)
Fry's sporting achievements are real enough. He equalled the world long jump record. He played for England at football (once) and Southampton in the FA Cup final. Played for the Barbarians at rugby.
Primarily a cricketer, he captained England and scored almost 100 first class centuries.
Tried three times to be elected as a Liberal MP but without success. Was a great Classicist.
So, we have a combination of Greg Rutherford, Michael Vaughan, Albert Einstein, Mary Beard, Victor Ubogu, Dave Rowntree and Francis Jeffers. Magic.
19. Linford Christie (Athletics, 1980s-1990s)
Well, he has a pretty severe black mark against his name if we're talking sporting greatness. No one else on this list ever failed a doping test (though I suppose a couple did skip them). And he failed twice.
First of all, the one that stuck, it should be noted, was amidst a glut of very dodgy readings for nandrolone when they were not understanding the extent nandrolone readings could fluctuate for different people. And it was odd, because it was during a brief, pretty non-competitive comeback when he was 39.
But what of 1988, when he was very very lucky to escape sanction after failing a test at the 1988 Olympics. Can we forgive him? Can we believe him, like the man he coached, Darren Campbell, the cleanest man in athletics, believed in him.
The issue of doping in the sprints is right at the forefront this month, and very interesting things are being said amid the outrage. We may not like it, but there's doping, and then there's doping. There's steroids and blood doping, blatant, straightforward cheating, and then there's degrees and amounts of supplements, pushing the boundaries to get whatever advantage they can.
Goodness knows about Linford Christie. Nearly all the top sprinters of his era have been linked to doping in some way or another. How did he beat them if he didn't join them, one wonders?
He did beat them. He was clearly and definitively the fastest man in the world in 1992 and 1993, and being the fastest man in the world in the early 90s is worth to me a lot more than almost anything else in sport. So there we go. I'm sorry about this, but I think Linford Christie was a great, great sportsman, and I'm prepared to think the best of him.
18. Stephen Hendry (Snooker, 1980s-2000s)
17. Jonathan Edwards (Athletics, 1980s-2000s)
He was a skinny grey man even when he did it, even as he hopped, skipped and jumped way further than anyone else, ever. He somehow didn't win the Olympics in 1996, because an American Kenny Harrison did the jump of his life, but got what he deserved in 2000 in Sydney.
It was at the 1995 World Championships, though, that, that he had his finest hour, a triple jump record of 18.29m, which is so much further than what most of them do, it's really Beamonesque. It's stood for 18 years, and should continue to stand, (although there is some inconsistent young talent out there).
The triple jump is such a great event too, so thrilling to watch, so athletic, yet also so technical. Edwards was a physicist, which figures. He was also, of course, a Christian. Until 2007, when, rather splendidly, he stopped presenting Songs of Praise and happily announced he didn't believe in God any more. Genius.
16. Phil Taylor (Darts, 1980s-2010s)
15. Max Woosnam (Multiple Sports, 1910s-1920s)
As I said with CB Fry, who knows, there may be folk capable of such outrageous variety these days who are simply not given the opportunity, so focused must professionalism be. Dammit, I wish there was still 'Superstars' so we could really find out ...
14. Steve Redgrave (Rowing, 1980s-2000s)
Still, when it all worked out it would be churlish to have him lower than 14, such a tremendously dedicated athlete over 20 years, a smart, amazingly fit and strong man. 5 Olympic golds in consecutive Games is amazing. I like Redgrave.
But, you know, it's rowing. I went to a school where there was rowing. It's a sport for non-sportspeople. The ones who have realised they are no good at anything involving dexterity and skill but want to get fit. And, boy does it get you fit. And there must be something terribly addictive about it, because they were up every morning, rowing on the Thames. Big lungs, no doubt.
And they all do the same thing. There may be pairs, coxed pairs, fours, coxless fours, eights, but they all carry out the same action over the same distance of 2000m in a straight line. [Apart from scullers, of course, a slightly different action]. If Olympic rowing was a bit more like the University boat race, with currents and angles and considerable distance, it would be slightly different, but only slightly.
Rowing is just training and executing. Improvisation? Flair? Grace? Eyeball to eyeball? Dexterity? Virtuosity? Versatility?
I'm picking on rowing, of course. There are many sports with similar limitations. Some might point to athletics. But running is a primal thing, which every single thing in the world does. And they are on their own. And, apart from 100m, they are not running in a straight line, and there are all kinds of tactics. I could go on.
Redgrave was a great athlete, a great sportsman, but I need a little more.
13. Joe Calzaghe (Boxing, 1990s-2000s)
The fact he never lost is somehow held against him too bizarrely. Because a big thing in boxing is coming back from defeats. But Calzaghe simply never got beaten, not since a teenage amateur fight in 1991. He was never really close to losing. He won a split decision against Bernard Hopkins (probably the greatest boxer of modern times, by the way) but I don't think the fight was that close, and also a split decision against fellow Brit Robin Reid, but most agreed with the decision going to Calzaghe [brief intermission - Reid is just about the unluckiest boxer of modern times - he got that close to Calzaghe and lost an outrageous decision on Germany to another "undefeated" "champion" Sven Ottke, who got more fixed wins than you can believe, and the Reid one was the most egregious. Reid also is the only man, Carl Froch says, who ever hurt him in a fight, made him see stars. That close to three massive career-defining wins, but now rather a forgotten man].
Calzaghe fought 46 times as a pro and sure there were a few easy fights in there, but there was Eubank, Reid, Richie Woodhall, Charles Brewer, Byron Mitchell, Jeff Lacy, Sakio Bika, Mikkel Kessler, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr, all world champions at one point or another.
Calzaghe was a magnificently skilful, fast, clever boxer, he had a great chin and was never really hurt. His reputation suffers only because he was too good for his own good.
12. Ryan Giggs (Football, 1990s-2010s)
But think of it this way, ok? In establishing the basic and fundamental premise of this blog, that Ryan Giggs is a greater sportsman than Steve Redgrave, I ask how many kids around the world have, over the last 25 years, given everything they've got throughout their childhood to have the opportunity to replace Steve Redgrave, to fill his position? A few thousand lanky posh kids, perhaps, around the world? And Ryan Giggs? How many millions of children throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, South America has he had to stay at the top of his game for 22 years to keep from usurping him?
He plays for Manchester United, one of the three biggest sports clubs in the world. He's played for them for 22 years. He is, did you know, the most decorated club footballer in the world of all time, in terms of number of top competitions won. In the 23 years before he played for Manchester United, they'd won the league title 0 times. In the 23 years he has played for them, they've won it 12 times, and never been outside the Top 3. Alex Ferguson had already been manager for 5 years, so what made the difference? Scholes, Beckham, the Nevilles etc came into a winning team, a champion team, unlike Giggs. Keane? They won the league the year before he joined and the three years after he left. What influence? Cantona? Definitely, but, to be fair, they didn't win the Champions League til shortly after he left.
So, Giggs. You probably know he's my favourite player. But it's not like he's my cousin or something. Or that I support Man Utd, or have a soft spot for his style and manner. He's my favourite player, because I worked out pretty early on that he was the most important player, that he was the key to British football, and, of course, because when he was young he was utterly brilliant.
Sometimes football people say that a truly great footballer has to be able to grab a game by the scruff of the neck, do everything themselves, dominate the game, have every skill in the book. I say nonsense. Football is about excellence and results in a team context. A great footballer, has the most positive possible effect on the results of his team over the longest possible period of time. Greatness in football is just as much about an absence of negatives as much as positives. How many times have you seen a team mate shouting at Giggs, or has he been sent off, or really just fucked things up for his team?
And, like I said, lest we forget, he was also brilliant. A Giggs highlight reel on youtube is as good as anything you'll ever see. He scored plenty of goals, great goals, and more than that, he set up goals, probably set up more goals than any other player has ever set up. Even if he wasn't dominating a game or even playing well, at the right time he'd deliver the right cross to make a 1-1 a 2-1 and get the points that added up to the title at the end of the season.
So, there we go, Number 12. I'm not sure it's even high enough. Giggs is, by far, the main player of the Premier League age, and the Premier League is the most highly developed level ever reached in British sport, for all its flaws. 11 would have made more sense, of course. Oh well.
11. Ian Botham (Cricket, 1970s-1990s)
So, someone my age might fall into the trap of thinking that, on a global scale, Botham was good but not great. But I'd be wrong. The last 6 years of his test career should be forgotten about. He only took 28 wickets in the last 6/7 years of his test career, having taken about 350 in in the first 7/8.
Great Botham was great. Properly quick, a natural wicket taker, a fine fine batsman with 13 test centuries, he lives up to the legend. If he played now, goodness, he'd be a billionaire.
I could go on now about what a chump he is, but I won't. I save that for facebook. He was England's best all round cricketer, and though he did tail off, he didn't spectacularly blow it or fail to live up to his talent, he just got a bit worse as he got fatter and more injury-prone, like most of us do.
Also played league football and has walked a long way, apparently.
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